Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

*Warning*

This chapter contains a rape scene. It's not graphic but I want to make sure not to offend anyone. So please read with caution.

Bella POV

The ride to Embry's house was quiet and uncomfortable. I was shocked, angry, and hurt that Harry could talk so cruelly about Embry's mother.

Being a part of the pack was supposed to bring a special kind of unity between the people that knew between us. How could Harry be so heartless toward a woman who had to raise her son single-handedly who was destined to be a werewolf and hunt vampires for the rest of his life?

We pulled up in front of Embry's house and before we got out of the car, Billy turned to me and said, "I think that Nata can be a great help to you concerning your dream. There's a lot that you could learn from her. You have heard a lot of bad things about her but all I ask is that you keep an open mind. If she trusts you, maybe she will share her story with you."

Getting out of the car I waited while Jake helped his dad get settled in his wheelchair. Jake went to the door and knocked and after a few moments, Embry's mom opened the door. She took a look at us and said, "Jacob, it's nice to see you. Embry isn't here right now. He's in Forks visiting with Angela."

Jacob smiled at Embry's mom. She was always very nice to him and he always felt welcome in her home. "We actually are here to see you."

She backed up and let us in. Nata continued to walk toward her living room and we followed her. Embry's mom turned toward us and gestured toward her couch. "Please, sit down and make yourselves comfortable. Would anyone like something to drink?"

We all shook our heads no. Nata sat down on the edge of a chair and waited for someone to speak.

I found myself studying her. She was a beautiful woman. She had a caramel complexion, almond-shaped chestnut-colored eyes, a dainty nose that was slightly crooked and full lips that many women paid millions to attempt to achieve. She was about 5'2', slim and had thick, beautiful dark brown hair that was layered and rested just past her shoulders. At the moment she did not have on any make-up. Her beauty was natural and I could imagine wherever she went she turned a lot of men's heads. Her beauty was intimidating and I was sure that was another reason why so many of the women in La Push were so cold toward her.

I'd come in contact with her several times over the years and realized I'd never seen her smile. She was always very serious and strict with Embry.

My thoughts were interrupted when Billy started to speak.

"Nata, we brought Bella here to see you because of a dream that she had. We need your help figuring out what it means."

Embry's mom looked at me. "So exactly what do you know about me?"

I blushed. Of course when she asked this question, every rumor that I'd ever heard bombarded my mind. I attempted to get out of answering the question by responding with a simple. "Huh?"

"Did Billy explain to you and Jacob why he would want you to meet with me?"

"Billy said that you could help figure out my dream and be a great help to me."

Nata looked toward Billy with unguarded eyes and sighed. She was quiet for a moment before she said, "Billy, Jacob, I need to talk to Bella alone. She will call you when it's time to come get her."

They didn't ask questions. Jacob stood up and helped push Billy out the door. I looked at Embry's mom and swallowed hard. This woman really made me nervous.

I cleared my throat and nervously said, "Thank you, Ms. Call, for taking the time to talk to me."

For the first time I saw her smile. She rested one of her hands on my knee and said, "Bella, it is an honor to talk to you. I've been waiting for this day to come. Catori came to see me a short time before she disappeared and told me that you would be brought to me and you could be trusted with my story. Oh, and please call me Nata."

Nata sat back in her chair and began to talk.

"I'm what the tribe calls an Interpreter of Dreams. It's a gift that has been passed down from generation to generation on my mother's side of the family. As a child until my teen years, I was trained in the art of interpreting dreams. My mother is well known amongst several tribes along the West Coast and that is how Catori came in contact with us.

"My mother and father are not Quileute. We come from the Tolowa tribe in California. Catori contacted my mother on several occasions to help interpret dreams that she was having. She lived on our reservation for a couple of months and during that time, my mother and Catori spent a lot of time together. My mother really liked Catori and wanted to befriend her, but Catori made it clear that she did not want be to be anything more than an acquaintance.

"Catori was friendly, but she kept her distance. She was a mystery, but we were drawn to her. When Catori decided that it was time to go back to La Push, she invited us to come and visit. My family fell in love with La Push and the families there. From that moment on, we would come and visit a couple times a year.

"Once I got pregnant in my last year of high school, my family stopped visiting La Push. When Embry was two years old, Catori came to visit us. That was when my family found out that the Quileute legends were true about shape-shifters and vampires."

Nata stopped talking and ran her fingers through her hair. She got up and walked to her fireplace and picked up a baby picture of Embry. With her back to me she said, "I have never told anyone who Embry's father was. Catori eventually realized who it was, but that was because of her powers. When she confronted me and told me she knew what happened, I refused to verbally confirm it. I had pushed that memory to the darkest parts of my mind. I didn't want to take a chance of allowing it to resurface. I didn't believe that I was strong enough to handle it back then."

I felt uneasy. Nata was about to share something that was tragic. I had a strong feeling that vampires weren't the only predators that La Push had to worry about.

Nata put the picture down and faced me. She had tears running down her face as she continued to talk.

"The summer I was sixteen, I began to baby-sit for some of the families in La Push. These families included the Uley's (Sam), The Black's (Rachael and Rebecca), and The Trujillo's (Paul).

"When Paul Trujillo was born, his mother decided that she didn't want to be married and a mother so she took off. Paul's father was left to raise a baby on his own. Over time, he became very angry and bitter and spent more of his time at bars drinking and fighting than he did working and taking care of his son.

"Soon after Paul's mother left, his grandmother moved in and helped raise Paul. His father worked nights so he could be home to help his mother with Paul in the day time. His grandmother had a sudden emergency one night and asked if I could come over to watch Paul.

"I agreed, since it seemed like easy money. I was asleep on the couch when suddenly the front door slammed open and Paul's father stumbled into the house. I could smell the alcohol before he came anywhere near the couch. As he attempted to walk by, he crashed into the coffee table, lost his balance, and half-way fell on top of me. I screeched and pulled my blanket tightly around me.

"I scared him just as much as he scared me. He jumped off the couch and yelled, 'Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?'

"'I'm Nata. Your mother had an emergency and she asked me to come over and watch Paul since you weren't home.'

"He stumbled out of the living room. I let go of a breath that I didn't know I was holding and my muscles started to relax. I realized that I was thirsty and got up to get some water.

"While opening the cabinet door and reaching inside for a glass, a hand abruptly grabbed me around my waist and yanked me away from the cabinet. I dropped the glass and it shattered as it hit the floor. I started to scream when a rough, dirty hand covered my mouth to muffle my cry. He was breathing heavily against my ear and I could feel the bile rising up my throat as the stench of his breath blew in my face. He lifted me off the floor and half dragged me out of the kitchen.

"My arms and legs were thrashing everywhere as I tried to get away from him. But the more I attempted to pull away, the tighter his grip became. He flung me onto the couch and before I had a chance to sit up and get away, he pinned me down by straddling my waist with his legs. I was trying to kick and hit him at the same time. He leaned forward and grabbed my wrists and held my arms above my head.

"I felt light-headed when I heard him fiddling with his belt buckle and realized exactly what he intended to do. I began to buck my waist, scream, and kick as hard as I could but he was too heavy and too strong for me to fight him off. I felt him yank his pants down and then he fumbled with my pajama pants. I screamed even louder and pleaded for someone to help me. Suddenly, my air was cut off when he started to strangle me. He hissed in my ear that if I didn't shut up he was going to snap my neck.

"I wanted to die. He was going to rape me with his young son sleeping in the room down the hall from us. I prayed that Paul's grandmother would come home at that moment. But as the moments went by, I realized that I was at his mercy. I begged and pleaded for him to let me go and I promised that I wouldn't tell anyone but he didn't stop.

"When it was over, he rolled off of me and stumbled out of the living room and a few seconds later I heard a door slam. I got up and quickly got dressed. I was just about to call Mrs. Trujillo and beg her to come home when I heard her coming through the front door. I ran to her, hysterical and told her what happened.

"She saw the broken glass in the kitchen, the finger prints on my neck and arms, and the blood that was on the sheet that covered the couch. But instead of calling the police and taking me to the hospital, she claimed that I was a liar and her son would never do something like that. She threatened me and said that if I accused her son of raping me, she would tell everyone that she caught me throwing myself at him and he rejected me so I made up the story of rape to get back at him.

"I left La Push the next day and never came back until Catori came for me."

Nata stood up and walked toward a desk that she had in the corner of her living room. She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a book. She flipped through the pages and pulled out a picture, and walked back to where I was sitting and handed me the picture.

It was a picture of a Native American man that looked like he was in his early twenties. He had thick, long black hair that was parted in the middle and hung loosely past his shoulders. His eyes were so dark they looked black, but they were open and friendly. He had a crooked smile and a dimple in his chin.

I handed the picture back to Nata and said, "He's very handsome. Who is he?"

Nata stared at the picture for a while and began to trace her finger over it. Her eyes started to water and she took a deep breath and said, "This is Kalani Crowe. He was my husband.

"When I was born, I was promised to Kalani. He was the youngest son of the chief of our tribe. We grew up together and became best friends. He was three years older than me, but the age difference didn't matter.

His family owned a construction business, so as soon as he graduated from high school, he began working for his father like the rest of his siblings. He was making preparations for us to get married as soon as I graduated from high school. We loved each other so much and had a strong connection. Kalani knew something was wrong with me the moment I stepped off the plane coming back from La Push.

"Of course I wouldn't talk about it, and I made sure that Kalani did not see the marks on my body. When we got back to my home I was thankful that my parents were not home. Kalani walked me to the couch and held me as I cried on his shoulder for hours.

"Three weeks later I found out I was pregnant. It wasn't enough that I had to suffer through reliving what happened to me every night when I went to sleep but there would be a living reminder about what happened to me also.

"I considered ending my life. Once everyone found out about this I could lose everything. Kalani would leave me, my parents would be disgraced and the tribe would turn their backs on me. I wasn't raised to be a coward, so I knew I had to face this. The only thing that I had done wrong was not coming forward and admitting what happened to me. I shouldn't have let Paul's mother bully me like that. Now if I tried to tell the truth, people may not have believed me.

"I told Kalani first and prepared myself for his anger and disgust. He told me that he knew something bad had happened to me and if I was pregnant then it wasn't because I cheated on him. He still wanted to marry me and claim the child as his.

"I didn't want to do it. I didn't feel it was fair to Kalani, but he loved me and wanted to take care of me. I promised I would go along with what he wanted. We went to my parents first and of course they were upset but since we were promised to each other, they got over it. Kalani's father took it hard and felt that Kalani's behavior was disrespectful to the tribe and his position as the son of the chief.

"We were married within a month. I continued to go to school and things seemed to be going well. The tribe was very forgiving and didn't shun Kalani and me. I feared that I would not be able to love my son because of how he was conceived. But from the first moment that I laid eyes on him I felt nothing but the fiercest love for him. I was grateful that I was blessed with a ray of sunshine.

"Kalani was wonderful with Embry. As far as he was concerned, Embry was his real son. For two years, we were a happy family. I was a good, loving wife and mother and Kalani was a wonderful husband and father. I was living the life I had always dreamed about, but my world was shattered once again when Catori showed up on my doorstep.

"She explained to Kalani and me about the cold ones and werewolves. We were told that Embry had the werewolf gene and his destiny was in La Push and not California. We went to my parents' house and Catori told them what she told us. Immediately, my mother began to cry. She said that she had been having dreams about wolves circling around me. Standing next to me in the middle of the circle was a grey wolf with black spots and eyes that looked like Embry's.

"My father thought of the worst case scenario and accused me of cheating on Kalani when I went to La Push to visit and that I had deceived everyone into believing that the child was Kalani's.

"Kalani explained that he knew the child was not his but he chose to marry me anyway because he loved me and Embry. Once the story got out that Embry was not Kalani's son, it caused an uproar within the tribe. Of course, only my family and Kalani knew about the shape-shifting and vampires. Because it was believed that I disgraced my promise to Kalani, our marriage ended. My name was erased from the tribal records and my father disowned me.

"Kalani was devastated. He knew some of the truth and begged me to admit to what happened to me. I didn't deserve to be treated like this. I was the love of his life and he didn't want our family to be torn apart. Kalani was going to leave the tribe and come with me, but Catori assured him that I would be fine and this was a path that I had to take alone.

"Kalani and I have kept in touch through letters over the years. Every year, he gets a new picture of Embry. Three years ago, he remarried and a couple of months ago they had their first child. I miss him so much and I don't think that I will ever fall in love with anyone the way that I loved Kalani. He was a good husband and I wish that Embry could have had that life instead of the one he's had to endure."

Nata looked exhausted and broken. Telling this story took all of her energy. I didn't know what to say. Nata was raped by Paul's father. Paul and Embry were half brothers. I looked at Nata and said, "You don't deserve the way people have treated you and Embry. It's not too late to come forward and tell them what really happened."

Nata shook her head and said, "There is a time and a place for everything. I would never condone anyone making the choice that I made. I should have looked for help until someone believed me, but that was not the path I took. You can't do evil to someone and not have it come back to you. He will get what's coming to him and when the time comes, the truth will be revealed."

"Why didn't Catori stop this? She always seemed to know what was going on."

"She only knows what the spirits allow her to know. She would not have allowed that to happen if she had known about it."

"Why have you shared this with me?"

"Because you are the Alpha's Imprint; if you know the wolf, you can guide their imprint. Angela was a perfect match for Embry. He needed someone that was not connected to this reservation that could look at him without judgment. Knowing about how Embry was conceived will also give you some insight about Paul."

My mind was spinning. This was so much information. I fell back onto the couch cushions and asked, "Can I have that water now?"

Next chapter Bella, and the Cullens. Rise and Shine Chase!

Of course I must thank the wonderful betas Edwardsfavoritebrunette and Wolfskill. Betas are very important. I was encouraged to try and use a gerund phrase definition. I looked it up on Google and still had no clue what that was but I did my best. I don't remember hearing about that in school.